Plant says Barracoon is not only about the brutality of slavery and its aftermath in this country, it's about the pain of what was lost and left behind. But Lewis also remembered his village before the massacre, like the day he saw a group of young girls in the market and admired their jingling jewelry - then bemoaned the fact that he was too young to marry. It was a brutal massacre and those who survived were sold as slaves. He describes in graphic detail the day his village was raided by another tribe. To deny him his language is to deny his history, to deny his experience - which ultimately is to deny him, period. And she refused to do so."Įmbedded in language is everything of his history. "They wanted to publish it," Sherrod says, "but they wanted Zora to change the language so it wasn't written in dialect and more in standard English.
She says Hurston tried to get it published back in the 1930s, but the manuscript was rejected. Tracy Sherrod is the editorial director of Amistad at Harper Collins, which is now publishing the book.
It's a national treasure that has spent more than 60 years in Howard University's library, where only scholars had access to it. Deborah Plant, who edited Barracoon, says that makes the book special, because most slave narratives focus on life in this country: "It is so unusual, it makes Barracoon a national treasure." As one of the last slaves to be brought to this country, aboard an illegal vessel, Lewis still had many memories of his life in Africa.
Though he was an old man then, he was thrilled to hear that name again. When Hurston first met Lewis at this home in Alabama, she called him by his African name: Kossula. It's called Barracoon, and it's based on a series of conversations Hurston had with Cudjo Lewis, who was brought to this country aboard the last ship that carried slaves across the Atlantic Well, that's not quite right it's actually an old book that is only now being published. Zora Neale Hurston, one of the best known writers of the Harlem Renaissance - and the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God - has a new book. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Barracoon Subtitle The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" Author Zora Neale Hurston and Deborah G.
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